EM/Circuit Co-Simulation: A Highly Accurate Method for Microwave Amplifier Design

This paper features a radical and highly accurate method of designing a microwave amplifier. A Full-wave Electromagnetic Simulator, which is based on the Method-of-Moments (MoM) numerical method, is used in parallel with the conventional microwave circuit simulator to demonstrate a superior performance outcome such as Stability, Return Loss and Small Signal Gain. This method known as EM/Circuit Co-Simulation guarantees a design that work with the first PCB and concurrently multiple PCB layouts are avoided, which saves design cost and development time respectively. The method is methodically demonstrated with the design of power amplifier (PA) based on E-pHEMT technology for IEEE 802.16e Mobile WiMAX applications.